


i just want somebody near me

by sapphicish



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 03, i listen to nobody by mitski. i think about jeri hogarth ruining everything. i go rabid, the word "shit" is written a lot because that's what their lives are, they aren't explicitly together in this but jeri is thinking some thoughts!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 19:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19235242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: Jessica shrugs. “You're shit. You'll always be shit. But you still deserve something. I guess. I don't know. And I don't care.”It's the nicest thing anyone's ever told her even after they find out what she's like, even after they know everything there is to know, and Jessica knows more about her than anyone else, somehow, and she's still here. Jeri looks away, feeling her eyes stinging.It's the wine. She can be excused.





	i just want somebody near me

**Author's Note:**

> watched s3 and felt feral the whole time...jeri fucked some people over AGAIN and that's authentic to her whole self and i appreciate it but like. LADY...
> 
> my ideal s4 is just jessica and jeri hooking up falling in love etc etc and since jj has been cancelled i can let that happen in my head

“She told me I'm going to die alone.”

Jeri can be excused for that, surely. Surely she can be excused for all of it, sitting here in the middle of the night with a tired, worn-out Jessica Jones sitting across from her, wondering why the hell Jeri's called her to her apartment at this hour. Because she's gone through half a bottle of wine and she's tired herself and she can't sleep and she can't stop thinking about it, can't stop thinking about everything. So, yes, she can be excused.

Except she'd scrolled through all of her contacts thrice and the only one she ended up calling was Jessica, because Jessica's the only one now, the only one who might actually keep coming when she's called, the only one left. And it makes her sick. Everything makes her sick.

She can be excused for that. Surely.

She hears the slur in her voice and she hates it. It's the wine. It has to be the wine, but then she thinks – what if it's not? What if it's the ALS? What if it's the disease that's eating away at every part of her, that will keep eating away at every part of her until she's just gone?

“What?” Jessica eyes her over her glass of whiskey. She'd invited her over under the guise of talking about a case with her, but it's nearly an hour in and they both know better now, the files abandoned and all of Jeri's professionalism erased, drowned in cold aching despair.

And it's when she thinks that, like she's some depressed idiot teenager scribbling in a diary, that Jeri knows she should kick Jessica out and go to bed, and lay there alone, staring at the ceiling, staring at her hands, staring at the death of herself until she finally drifts off to sleep, but she just takes another sip of wine instead.

“Kith,” she says distantly. “She told me...” She trails off, swallows. She feels like she's going to vomit and if she does that'll just be the icing on top of this shit cake of a week, a month, a year. On her hands and knees, puking all over Jessica Jones' shoes, and then crying because she's puked all over Jessica Jones' shoes, and then crying because she's dying, and then crying because she's alone. And dying. Always dying.

“Yeah?” Jessica says, _yeah_ like she doesn't see the problem, _yeah_ like she agrees with Kith, _yeah_ like she knows like Jeri knows like they all know that Kith was right. She kicks her feet up on the expensive, clean table and Jeri's first thought is to lean in and push them off, but she doesn't. “Newsflash, Hogarth, we all die alone. Get over it.”

“But I had the chance,” Jeri murmurs. She takes another sip. “I had the chance for something else.”

“And you fucked it up like you did with Wendy and Pam. Yeah. That's what happens when you're a shit person.” Jessica stands, her glass empty. She sets it down and turns away. Jeri wants to scream. She wants to say _don't leave._ Or more importantly she wants to say _stay._ But Jessica doesn't head for the door; she just goes back to the liquor cabinet, grabs another bottle of too-expensive whiskey, comes back, sits down.

Jeri's hands shake when she takes her glass again, just a little. She watches the liquid slosh into Jessica's cup. She wants to take it and drink it, or she wants to stop Jessica from pouring it, or she wants to touch Jessica, not close and personal but just there, the curve of her arm, the round of her shoulder, anything at all to know that she's there, she's real. “Why are you here?”

Jessica stares at her, eyes narrowing. “You called me.”

“Why did you come?”

“You...called...me.” Jessica's tone is the kind of tone that you use when you're talking to a dimwitted child and you don't like children, syllables all stretched out in her exasperation.

“You don't always come when I call. And I didn't think you would ever again. So. Why?”

Jessica leans back into the couch, crossing her arms. The leather of her jacket shines in the light. Jeri wants to wear it, for a moment, but she isn't sure why. She'd like to slip it off Jessica's shoulders and –

And Jeri blinks. She's never thought about undressing Jessica Jones before, not in any way, shape or form, and she's not going to start now. It's the wine.

She can be excused.

(Here's the rest: she wants to slip it off Jessica's shoulders and see if it fits herself, and she wants to look at the shitty tank top Jessica's wearing underneath, and she wants to look at her pale skin and she wants to touch it, and she wants Jessica to want that, she wants Jessica to touch her back, she wants something.

But Jeri doesn't think about that.)

“You sounded like you were feeling like shit,” Jessica says. “I thought you were going to kill yourself or something. And that's my job, remember?”

“Changed your mind?” It sounds bitter in her head, worse coming out of her mouth. “Now that I've fucked you over again?”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Now that you've proven to me for the hundredth time that you're an asshole, I've finally decided to put you out of your misery. If that was a deciding factor in all of this, I would've killed you a long time ago.”

They both know it's a lie. That fact isn't very soothing to Jeri, however, not in any way.

“So then what? Don't tell me you feel sorry for me now.”

Jessica scoffs. Takes another sip. Meets Jeri's eyes, hard and unforgiving, and Jeri looks away. She's the one that looks away now. It makes her sick. “No. You got what's coming to you. You're gonna get what's coming to you. But not even you, one of the shittiest people I've ever met—and I've met a lot of shitty people—deserve to die like that.”

“Why not?” Her voice feels dim in her throat, in her head. She wants to scream it. _Why not. Why not why not why not. Get out. No, come back. Come back. Stay. Stay please. Please. Don't leave me. I can't be alone. Get out. Come back. Leave. Come back. Stay. Forever._ Jessica's the only one that comes back to her time and time again, and it's not a realization that she needs right now, but it's the one she gets, and she feels the bile rising again. She stares at her hands – they've gone steady again, but only a little – and then at Jessica. “Why don't I?”

Jessica shrugs. “You're shit. You'll always be shit. But you still deserve something. I guess. I don't know. And I don't care.”

It's the nicest thing anyone's ever told her even after they find out what she's like, even after they know everything there is to know, and Jessica knows more about her than anyone else, somehow, and she's still here. Jeri looks away, feeling her eyes stinging.

It's the wine. She can be excused.

“Hogarth, don't—shit, I didn't tell you that so you could get all fucking weepy on me, Jesus—“

“Shut up,” Jeri whispers, dropping her head into her hands. “Just shut up.”

“I'm gonna leave.”

“No. God, no. Stay.” _Please,_ it almost comes out then. _Stay please. Please stay. Please._

“I'll be back tomorrow. I need your help with this case anyway, remember? Since tonight has been completely pointless thanks to your alcoholism and...depression or whatever.”

“You calling _me_ an alcoholic?”

“Shut up. No wine next time. I don't need you crying again when there's shit I need you to do for me.”

Jeri wipes her face and looks up. Jessica looks a little uncomfortable and not very sympathetic, but she'll take it. She'll take anything. She can't afford not to. “Right. Yes. Fine. I'll call you if you don't show up.”

“Wow,” Jessica says blandly. “Like a needy girlfriend. Nice. See you then, Hogarth.”

Then she's gone. Jeri doesn't watch her go, just listens to the thumping of her boots, just thinks about the words _needy girlfriend,_ just swallows and swallows and swallows again until she has to rush to the bathroom to be sick.

She barely sleeps.

  


  


Jessica shows up the next day, earlier than she'd been expecting, a stack of files in hand. Jeri's wrapped in a robe and her hair is still damp from a shower when she opens the door.

“Who's the needy girlfriend now?”

She gets a narrow-eyed look in response, and for a moment – for the first time in a while – Jeri wants to laugh.

“Shut up,” Jessica says gruffly, and pushes her aside on her way in. By the time she's closed the door and turned around, Jessica is already at her liquor cabinet, rummaging around inside.

“What—“ Jeri sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I'm looking for my whiskey.”

“ _My_ whiskey, thank you, and I thought we weren't going to drink during this.”

“You aren't. I am.”

“That doesn't seem very fair—“

“Boohoo. Life isn't fair. Suck it up.” Bottle in hand, Jessica turns and shoves past her _again,_ then tosses herself down on her furniture like it's made for her to toss herself down on, an arm slung over the back and her feet kicked up on the table before Jeri can say _don't put your feet on my table._

“...You're very irritating today. I mean, more than usual. Which is impressive and awful. Did you sleep?”

Jessica looks at her blandly, takes a swig and flips open one of the files she brought, leaning over it. “What do you think?”

Jeri sighs, and then sits down next to her. It's not like she has any other choice unless she wants to threaten to kick Jessica out, and that's the last thing she wants to do – even if knowing that makes her feel a little ill. “I didn't, either.”

They look at each other a moment. What Jeri really wants to say is plenty of things, none which will mean anything in the end. Maybe _thank you,_ maybe _you can stay over tonight if you want,_ maybe _why are you here,_ maybe _are you okay._ Maybe _I woke up half a dozen times last night and the longest I slept straight through was two hours and then I had a migraine, and I almost vomited in the shower, and then I did vomit in the shower, and I tripped on the way out and I fell and I sat there on the floor wrapped in a towel, dripping wet, dizzy and aching, my mouth tasting like vomit, feeling like screaming. I just cried instead, you know, the way children do, in those great big heaving sobs, the kind that just take the breath out of you, and it made me dizzier, and I kept thinking that this could happen again and again, and it will happen again and again, and I don't deserve this, and I don't know how to deal with it. Except I do deserve it. So I do deserve it, and I don't know how to deal with it. And that's worse. Probably._

There's no wine, so there's no excuse for her wanting to say those things. But she doesn't actually say them, and that's what matters.

“Come on, then,” Jessica says impatiently, kicking her out of her self-pity just in time. She slaps a file down in front of Jeri loudly, and with enough force that it scatters several others. “Get to work.”

Jeri knows she should feel insulted or at least annoyed by the brusqueness, and she is – a little – but when she looks at Jessica it fades away, little by little, one tiny piece after the other until there's nothing left, none of that hard-edged irritation she's most comfortable with. Jessica looks tired, dark circles under her eyes. She knows because she's looked in the mirror that she looks the same way. Jessica must be thinking about her sister, or her mother, or her sister's mother, or all the shitty things she's gone through. Maybe she's thinking about all of it, and maybe she's still here, with Jeri, despite all of it, and despite what Jeri's done to make her life even worse.

That deserves something – something like Jeri's silence, something like her obedience, something like her hard work. So she pulls the file into her lap and opens it up without complaint, and it's probably one of the only decent things she's done in recent history.

And every time she looks up to ask a question or answer a question about Jessica's newest and thankfully boring looking client, she's still there, drinking her whiskey and dirtying her table with her boots, her arms draped over the back of the couch or slouched around her knees.

She's always still there.

And that's something, Jeri thinks. It is.

At this point in her life, she'll take something.

She'll take anything she can get.


End file.
